Imettäjä – Concept

Here’s a sick little concept I finished this evening. I call it Imettäjä, as in Wet Nurse in Finnish. I’m planning to ink her and try to paint her with the similar colour scheme as seen in the painting below – The Old Woman And The Cat by Akseli Gallen-Kallela. But before that I might need to fix her way too long neck. Maybe.

After I’m finished with painting this piece, I’ll start to gather pieces and bits to create a miniature version of her. She shall have the honour to start my next INQ28 project.

Imettäjä is a honoured member of Officio Medicae, very often an old member of Astra Sororitas, Order Hospitaller. Practically they are old hags who pump milk out of their saggy breasts for those who are wealthy enough to afford their ministrations.

The skull of a titled mother who has deceased while giving a birth to her child is often given to Imettäjä, who then gives it new life as a servo-skull. The servo-skull is then used as a pumping device for the breast pump, so that mother’s spirit will touch the white fluid when it runs in to the cold metallic capsule.

Sometimes the milk runs out and blood starts to stream from their dry breasts. It’s a great honour to have the blood of the Imettäjä get mixed with the milk.

This Imettäjä flows around with an anti-graw platform. Notice the dead Crow nailed on the front of her studded leather apron. It symbolizes the wisdom of the Imettäjä.

The background reminds me a bit of mylings – a sort of swedish ghost child killed at birth by an unmarried mother. They would sometimes take their revenge on the mother by suckling them to death – draining the blood out of them through their breasts.

Thank you Jeff Vader! Bet you studied pretty many Nordic folklores back when you did your book project about them, didn’t you? It looks like Mylings are familiar to us Finns too – ihtiriekko they call them. That gives me an idea for this project… Cheers!

Maybe you give her a Mannerist twist when you start building the model? While the sketch is very 2D you could go contraposto extreme and make her pose into a horribly unreal spiral. I recollect the Kewin White sculpt for the Femme Militant range, Varangii – pretty awsome in all its Mannerism.